Dr. M. S. Vijay KumarAssistant Provost and Director of Academic

ComputingMIT

TERENA 2004Rhodes,, Greece

An Open Educational Ecology

Wednesday June 9,2004 vkumar@mit.edu

"ideas should freely spread from one to

another over the globe”Thomas Jefferson

Liberation Technology1

1John Unsworth - Chronicle of Higher Education, Jan. 30, 2004

Dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Elements of the Ecology

Open Content

Open Tools

Open Architecture

Open StandardsOpen Systems

Open Access

Bolstering the Commons of the Mind

Open Content MIT

OpenCourseware (OCW)

Open Architecture Open Knowledge Initiative

(O.K.I)

Educational Technology Strategy

MIT OpenCourseWareA New Model for Open Sharing

Open Content

“OpenCourseWare looks counter-intuitive in a market-driven world. It goes against the grain of current material values. But it really is consistent with what I believe is the best about MIT. It is innovative. It expresses our belief in the way education can be advanced – by constantly widening access to information and by inspiring others to participate.”

– Charles M. Vest,President of MIT

Sept. 2001

http://ocw.mit.edu/

• Fall 1999 — Faculty committee appointed

• Fall 2000 — “OpenCourseWare” concept recommended to MIT President Charles M. Vest

• April 2001 — MIT OCW announced in The New York Times

• June 2001 — Funding partnership with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

• September 2002 — MIT OCW Pilot site opened to the public50 courses from 23 academic disciplines

• September 2003 — MIT OCW officially launched: 500 courses from all five MIT schools and 33 academic

disciplines

• April 2004 — 200 additional courses, bringing total to 701

Vision to RealityHow Should MIT respond to the Opportunities of the Internet?

• An MIT education

• Intended to represent or replace the interactive classroom environment

• A distance education initiative

• A Web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content

• Open and available to the world

• A permanent MIT activity

MIT OpenCourseWare IS NOT:

MIT OpenCourseWare IS:

What Is MIT OCW?

• Provide free, searchable, coherent access to all MIT course materials for educators, students, and individual learners around the world

• Create an efficient, standards-based model that other educational institutions may use to publish their own course materials

Dual Mission: Open Content

• Furthers MIT’s fundamental mission

• Embraces faculty values

• Teaching• Sharing best practices with the greater

community• Contributing to their discipline

• Counters the privatization of knowledge and champions the movement toward greater openness

Why Is MIT Doing This?

50 500 900 1250 1550 1800 1800

• Design pub process• Implement technology

strategy• Develop IP strategy• Implement dept.

liaison program

• Develop evaluationstrategy

• Conduct baselineevaluation

• Partner with Universia(translation affiliate)

• Inventory content and improve quality• Enhance site features and functions• Add video materials• Plot new content capture tactics

• Implement reporting strategy• Conduct annual evaluations and focused studies

• Facilitate other opencoursewares• Partner with translation/distribution affiliates• Build awareness• Foster learning communities

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Phase IPilot

Phase IIExpansion

Phase IIISteady State

Courses

Publication

Evaluation

Outreach

701 Courses

Each year:• Add new courses: ~100• Revise existing: ~ 275• Archive old: ~ 100

• Conduct annual evaluations and studies

• Collaborate with consortium members

Vision

Where We Are

Implementation: Publishing x00Courses

Site Highlights

Syllabus

Course Calendar

Lecture Notes

Assignments

Exams

Problem/Solution Sets

Labs and Projects

Simulations

Tools and Tutorials

Video Lectures

Implementation Depth and Breadth

PublishingEnvironment

MIT Facilities

Content Distribution Network (Akamai)Thousands of servers around the world

deliver MIT OCW course materials

Implementation:Technology

Origin ServerSearch, Feedback

Impact

 Since

10/1/03*December January February March

Page Views 20,604,427 2,680,794 3,311,611 2,884,061 3,025,412

Average Daily Visits

*11,103 9,276 11,624 11,174 10,891

Average Monthly Visits

*301,719 287,546 360,360 324,058 337,620

First-Time Visits

*174,407 172,536 196,710 174,961 187,348

Monthly Repeat Visits

*127,312 115,010 163,650 149,097 150,272

* Figures in italics are averages

Impact: Access Data

Site Traffic Overview

What It MeansTraffic Volume by Geography

Country Hits

11 Brazil 340,281

12 France 334,190

13 Spain 318,292

14 Indonesia 251,495

15 Australia 240,689

16 Turkey 239,972

17 Colombia 196,504

18 Singapore 185,495

19 Mexico 165,221

20 Greece 164,496

Country Hits

1 India 954,167

2 Canada 859,782

3 China 822,206

4 U.K. 672,339

5 South Korea 448,975

6 Japan 421,334

7 Germany 402,965

8 Vietnam 401,498

9 Taiwan 392,701

10 Italy 366,484

March 2004

Impact: Access

• Self-learners are 52% of visitors

– Average of over 6000 daily visits

– Most likely from North America (60% of North American visitors)

• Students are 31% of visitors

– 3600 daily visits

• Educators are 13% of the visitors

– 1550 visits per day

– 55% of educators teach at 4-year colleges or the equivalent

– Almost 49% have less than 5 years teaching experience

• Almost 70% of users have a bachelors degree or higher

Impact: Use

5.7% response rate on 21,500 surveys

Use Scenario % of Use

Planning, developing or teaching a course 36%

Enhancing personal knowledge 22%

Planning curriculum 10%

Other 32%

Complementing a subject currently taking 43%

Enhancing personal knowledge 40%

Planning future course of study 10%

Other 7%

Enhancing personal knowledge 81%

Learning subject matter—course not available for study 9%

Planning future course of study 8%

Other 2%

Ed

uc a

t or s

Stu

de n

tsS

elf-

lea r

ner

s

• Other OCWs are beginning to appear

• Some using MIT materials, some using the format, some using the idea

Impact: Emerging “opencoursewares”

• Continues to be tremendous excitement

• The vision is achievable

• The impact of MIT OCW will be significant

Impact: What Does It Mean?

"an open and extensible architecture that specifies how the components of an educational software environmentcommunicate with each other and with other enterprise systems."

Open Knowledge Initiative

Open Standards

http://sourceforge.net/projects/okiproject

Motivation: from Extensible LMS…

Interoperable with campus infrastructures and other educational software

Flexible to meet a variety of Educational Needs

Scalable and Maintainableto…

...Architecture for Sustainable Ecology

Open specifications that

describe how the components of a learning technology environment communicate with each other and with other campus systems.

clearly define points of interoperability to allow the components of a complex learning environment to be developed and updated independently of each other

leading to…

Architectural Specification Benefits

Ability of learning technologies to be integrated together into an educational infrastructure.

Easier sharing of applications and content among institutions that can be a catalyst for cooperative and commercial development.

Lower long term cost of software ownership, as well as increased stability and reliability because single components, rather than entire systems, can be replaced or upgraded.

Infrastructure Goals

Linkage and Coherence across initiatives Managing the Educational Content Lifecycle from

Acquisition to Archiving Efficiency in Production and Use Effectiveness for educational use

Interoperable with Campus Infrastructures and other Educational Software

Flexible to meet a variety of Educational Needs Sustainability

Data Specifications – IMS/SCORM

EnterpriseApplication A

EnterpriseApplication B

Data

Enterprise Applications - Monolithic

Enterprise Applications - Factored

Ease of Application Portability and Infrastructure Transition

O.K.I. is:

Service based architecture specifications

Open Service Interface Definitions (OSIDs)

Open source implementations

Open source exemplar applications

Educational Development Community

Funded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, CMI, MIT

Core OKI Deliverables

16 Service Specifications/OSIDs “Common Services”

Infrastructure systems critical to most enterprise applications (AuthN; AuthZ……Logging, Messaging….Workflow)

“Educational Services” (Course Management; Assessment; Digital Repositories, Grading)

Reference Implementations Direct value to ed apps

Exemplar Applications Sustainability Strategies

OSID development funded by Mellon Foundation

Common Services

Authentication Authorization SQL Logging Filing Dictionary Hierarchy Group ID User Messaging Scheduling Workflow

“Educational Services”

Course Management Digital Repository Assessment Grading …

Other Domain Services?

…

http://sourceforge.net/projects/okiproject

O.K.I. Community Institutional Partners

MIT, Stanford University, Dartmouth College, North Carolina State University, University of Michigan, Indiana University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Cambridge

IMS Global Learning Consortium Members Assorted Institutional Projects

Vendor Engagement

IMS Global Learning Consortium

WebCT Blackboard Sun Microsystems Giunti Interactive Microsoft Corp Learning Objects Network

OSID Based Projects

LMS Projects -- Stellar/MIT, Oncourse/Indiana, Chef/UMichigan

VUE -- Tufts University

Navigo/SAM -- Stanford, Indiana

Lionshare - Penn State University

Segue/Harmoni - Middlebury College

Digital Library Systems -- Fedora, EduSource

(CA), DSpace, Celebrate (EU)

Michigan• CHEF Framework• CourseTools• WorkTools

Indiana• Navigo Assessment• Eden Workflow• OneStart• Oncourse

MIT• Stellar

Stanford• CourseWork• Assessment

OKI• OSIDs

uPortal

SAKAI 2.0 Release• Tool Portability Profile• Framework• Services-based Portal

SAKAI Tools• Complete CMS• Assessment• Workflow• Research Tools• Authoring Tools

Primary SAKAI ActivityRefining SAKAI Framework,

Tuning and conforming additional toolsIntensive community building/training

Activity: Ongoing implementation work at local institution…

Jan 04 July 04 May 05 Dec 05

Activity: Maintenance &

Transition from aproject to

a communitySAKAI 1.0 Release• Tool Portability Profile• Framework• Services-based Portal• Refined OSIDs & implementations

SAKAI Tools• Complete CMS• Assessment

Primary SAKAI ActivityArchitecting for JSR-168 Portlets,

Refactoring “best of” features for toolsConforming tools to Tool Portability Profile

"Best of"

Sakai Core ProjectOpen Systems

Refactoring

The O.K.I. Solution

Focus on Service Based architecture specifications (data/metadata specifications are “doing fine”)

Identify software infrastructure services critical to eLearning applications

Define interfaces to them. Don’t define how to implement them!

Open Service Interface Definitions (OSIDs)

Integration Effort as a Function of System Complexity

Eff

ort

Complexity

OSIDs…

Provide Architectural Model for software interoperability Allow for easy mobility of application tools among

enterprise infrastructures Provide software developers with common, yet flexible,

specifications for collaboration Define boundaries between “user facing” applications and

critical services (“MiddleWare”) Help to “Future Proof” against changing technologies Enable “marketplace” of software components Are about Architecture, NOT Technology

Interoperabilty and Integration

Multiple Repositories and Protocols

Service Abstractions

Endgame 1

Enable the movement and manipulation of educational materials - Simply, Meaningfully? Portabilty Interoperability Reusability,

Endgame

“What is the problem to which headlamp washer-wipers are the

solution?”Neil Postman. Educom Conference 1992

An ecology characterized by open, community orProprietary Source commodities that provide :

Value (heterogeneous) Choice (for customer) Sustainability

Thank You

Questions?

Vijay Kumar

Many Repositories…

IDC

I

BM

RemoteIDC

Institutional

Local

iMac

Many Repository Related Protocols…

IDC

I

BM

IDC

SOAPSRW

HTML

Z39.50

File System

DRI

Remote

Local

Institutional

iMac

Many Data Specs/Standards…

IDC

I

BM

IDC

SOAPSRW

HTML

Z39.50

DRI

Remote

Institutional

MarkDC

LOM

SCORM

METS

IMS CP

Local

iMac

File System

Service Abstractions for Interoperability

Open Systems

App. 1

Applications

App. 2

Application Client Servers

Network Service A1

Network Service B

Network Service A2

Service Abstractions for Interoperability

Open Systems

App. 1

OSIDApplications

App. 2

Application Client Servers

Network Service A1

Network Service B

Network Service A2

Service Abstractions for Interoperability

Open Systems

App. 1

Imp. A – Protocol Connector (plus Local Business

Logic)

Imp. B – Protocol Connector

OSID ImplementationsApplications

App. 2

Application Client Servers

Protocol A

Protocol B

Network Service A1

Network Service B

Network Service A2

Service Abstractions for Interoperability

Open Systems

App. 1

Imp. A – Protocol Connector (plus Local Business

Logic)

Imp. B – Protocol Connector

OSID

Imp. C - Local Connector

Local Service C

ImplementationsApplications

App. 2

Application Client Servers

Protocol A

Protocol B

Network Service A1

Network Service B

Network Service A2

Service Abstractions for Interoperability

Open Systems

App. 1

Imp. A – Protocol Connector (plus Local Business

Logic)

Imp. B – Protocol Connector

OSID

Imp. C - Local Connector

Local Service C

ImplementationsApplications

App. 2

Application Client Servers

Protocol A

Protocol B

Network Service A1

Network Service B

Network Service A2

Data

Data

Data

Data

Sakai Architecture

App. 1

OSIDs

App. 2

App. 3

App. 4

JSR

169 Enabled P

ortal

JSR 168Portlet API

Open Systems

Endgame

“What is the problem to which headlamp washer-wipers are the

solution?”Neil Postman. Educom Conference 1992

An ecology characterized byopen, community or proprietary source

commmodities that provide :

Value (heterogeneous) Choice (for customer) Sustainability